Sparkly Heart Emoji Cake

Y’all. For the month of January, I was shooting to do one blog post a week. I’d really love to do more, but I figured it’d be best to focus on one really awesome post per week than trying to force two or three crappy posts out into the interwebs.

And I have to say, after each one of my last four posts, I had a moment where I took a step back and thought, “This might be my favorite thing I’ve ever made.”

AND TODAY IS NO DIFFERENT.

If you follow me on any of my social media channels, you probably know that I have like 4 emojis that I use way too often. The 1st place spot goes to my all time favorite, the sparkly heart. Which is closely followed by the dancing lady, praise hands, and the little party favor emoji.

I’m not sure which one I should cake next. 😉

But this one! It makes my heart so happy. Probably much happier than cake should. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to make it, so you can share it with the special person in your life who gives you sparkly heart emoji feels.

To break this cake down a little bit, it starts with two layers of pink velvet cake, which I adapted slightly from Bakerella. Between the layers, there’s vanilla buttercream and fresh strawberries. If you followed my snapchat (bethandcakes) over the weekend, know that I included a recipe for homemade vanilla buttercream below, instead of the store bought frosting I actually used lol.

The whole cake is covered with strawberry frosting, which is made with dried strawberries that get a spin in a food processor. (This really makes the most flavorful strawberry frosting. I’d love to use fresh strawberries, but they mess with the texture too much.) THEN, the cake is covered in sparkly pink sprinkles. So necessary! I included a recipe below for a small batch of sugar cookie dough, which I used to make the yellow sparkles. They’re covered in the same vanilla frosting as the filling, and then sparkly yellow sprinkles.

There are quite a few steps for this cake (whoops!), so feel free to sub in store bought items where ever you want to! Also it can help to break this cake up into two days. Cake layers and filling one day, frosting and sprinkles the next. You can even make the sugar cookies ahead of time!

Preheat oven to 350*F and spray two heart cake pans (OR one pan and reuse it, that's what I did) with nonstick spray.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

In another bowl, combine oil, sugar, and vanilla. Mix on medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the eggs and mix well.

Add half the flour mixture and half the buttermilk; mix until just combined. Repeat with remaining flour and buttermilk; mix until completely combined.

Stir in 2 tsp pink food coloring, or add more until it's the shade you want. Divide the batter between the two pans (or pour half in the pan if you only have one) and bake 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (If you're doing one pan at a time, bake for about 18 minutes and test it.)

Let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

for the vanilla buttercream with strawberries

Cream butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add vanilla, milk, and half of the powdered sugar. Mix until incorporated. Repeat with remaining powdered sugar.

(Reserve about ⅓ of this frosting for the sugar cookies.)

Spread a thin layer of frosting over the bottom layer of cake. Arrange strawberries over frosting, dollop remaining frosting over strawberries, and use an offset spatula or knife to spread frosting over strawberries.

Place second cake layer on top of frosting. Use any of the remaining ⅔ frosting to fill in the gaps between the cake layers.

For the reserved ⅓ of frosting, stir in ¼ tsp yellow food coloring and add more until desired color is reached.

(If splitting this cake into two days, store it covered in the refrigerator.)

strawberry buttercream

Place dried strawberries in a food processor and process until the texture of fine, powdery crumbs.

Cream butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add powdered strawberries, mix until completely combined, and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Add vanilla, milk, and half of the powdered sugar. Mix until combined. Repeat with remaining powdered sugar. Add pink food coloring to achieve a brighter, more vibrant shade of pink.

Spread frosting over the outside of the cake, smoothing it out with an offset spatula. (It's okay if it isn't perfect because we're about to cover it entirely with sprinkles!)

Pour sprinkles into a bowl. Sprinkle over the top of the cake. The side are a little more difficult, but I think the best way is to scoop up some sprinkles with your fingertips and press them onto the frosting.

for the sugar cookies

Preheat oven to 350*F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cream butter on medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add sugar and vanilla, and mix until fluffy. Add the egg; mix well. Next, add flour and baking soda and mix until combined. Refrigerate cookie dough for 30 minutes.

Roll out cookie dough on a well-floured surface to ¼-inch thickness. I freehanded the sparkles, but they ended up being around three inches from top to bottom and 2½ inches from left to right.

Bake for 5 minutes, then let cookies cool completely. Pipe yellow frosting over cookies and cover with yellow sprinkles. Pipe a dab of frosting on the back of each cookie to place them on the cake.

NOW YOU'RE DONE!

Notes

Recipe frombethcakes. All images and content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without permission. If you would like to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or link back to this post for the recipe. Thank you.